Monday, August 1, 2016

Bill Glynn: From World Series to West Coast Minors

Bill Glynn played first and the outfield for the Philadelphia Phillies and Cleveland Indians in the late forties and early fifties.

An excellent fielder at first base, Glynn couldn't quite keep his bat hot enough to stay in the majors, and after helping the Indians make the World Series in 1954 (in which he was 1 for 2), he was sold to Indianapolis, the Cleveland AAA team.

Glynn hit very well in Indianapolis for the first part of the season, but the parent club sold him to the PCL Seattle Rainiers independent team midway thru the season, as noted here in the Indianapolis Star of May 12, 1955:

“The Cleveland system announced late yesterday that (Joe)
Altobelli, a first baseman, is being sent back as of today and that Bill Glynn
has been sold to Seattle of the Pacific Coast League for an undisclosed price,”

Altobelli was going to Indy and Glynn was going west.

The next year, Seattle became a Cincinnati farm club. Though Cleveland had more or less dumped Glynn off in 1955, by 1957 the Cleveland AAA team in the PCL, San Diego, made a move to get him back in the fold. From the Pasadena Independent of Aug. 13, 1957:

Federoff, another former major leaguer, we will cover in a later blog.

Glynn was with San Diego through 1958, when reportedly he was traded to Birmingham of the Southern League, balked, and retired. I couldn't find the newspaper article to back that up, but SABR has a great biography of Glynn and mentions the deal.

There is another unknown transaction that comes in 1952 where Glynn goes to independent PCL from the Phillies organization before Cleveland buys him, but, again, I could not find the details.